The present invention relates to an improvement in an bearing puller which allows for the removal of bearings from deeply recessed areas or from inside positions on long, extended rotational shafts. More specifically, the present invention provides a means varying a bearing pullers range by allowing for the addition or removal of sections to the body of the puller thereby allowing the working range of the puller to accommodate shafts of different lengths.
Often times in doing routine maintenance on a farm, factory or in a commercial repair shop it is necessary to replace bearings that have become locked onto a shaft. One method of doing this is through the use of heat applied with a torch and use of a hammer and chisel. However, many situations do not allow for the use of a torch due to heat sensitive material. Other times a bearing cannot be reached due to a deeply set location.
In the past, one would need specialized tools to remove deeply set bearings or bearings from long shafts. This would result in the necessity of using two or three tools to do one job, thereby not only increasing the time needed to complete the work, but also increasing the costs of maintaining equipment.
One example of a standard style bearing puller commonly used in the field is illustrated by U.S. Pat. No. 4,443,922, issued to Deland on Apr. 24, 1984. The problem with, this puller is that it is too short in its design to be used to remove deeply set bearings or bushings from long shafts and merely lengthening the puller would render it useless in tight situations. U.S. Pat. No. 3,358,352, issued to Wilcox on Dec. 19, 1967 is an example of a bearing puller designed specifically to remove deeply set bearings and bushings from long shafts. The Wilcox puller is often to long to be used as the bearing nears the end of a shaft during its removal. The end result of this is that the average user would need to have both of these tools, if not more, to handle many bearing removal jobs, thereby increasing both his costs of operation and his down time due to the necessity of switching between the tools at different stages of the operation.
From the forgoing discussion it can be seen that it would be advantageous to have one tool that would alone be adjustable to many different lengths. Further an adjustable length would allow for ease in storage. The disclosed bearing puller with extensions allows a user to pull bearings in this type of application without the need for added specialized tools, thereby reducing both the time and costs of the operation from the old method.